Friday, December 26, 2014
Good Servants Often Guide Their Masters
Dave Mathis reports on a message John Piper gave Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:
And yet, as I thought about those examples, I note that it really is feeling in the lead and my thought is not mastering it, but shaping it, refining my feelings so that my instincts begin to fall in line with God's designs. And that made me think of the title of this post. Good servants really do often control the household, but they do so in a fashion that leaves the masters with the impression they are in charge.
Perhaps we are not in the business of suppressing emotion, but of guiding it.
I think that puts Christian counseling on a very different course than secular counseling. What do you think?
Christ feelings thoughts
Doctrine is for the sake of delight. Christian theology does not exist for its own sake, but for our desiring and enjoying Christ.That is an interesting statement. I have always thought much of life was an effort to control feeling, to bring it to heal. Feeling seems so often the source of so much wrong in the world - it just seems dumb to allow such a thing to take lead. Feeling tells us that WE NEED - thinking tells us about the good of all. Feeling tells us that WE HURT, thinking tells us our hurt is little compared to our friend.
Simply put, the mind is meant to serve the heart. Thinking serves feeling. God gave us the ability to learn and reason, so that we might admire and treasure him above anything else. Right thinking is for deep feeling.
And yet, as I thought about those examples, I note that it really is feeling in the lead and my thought is not mastering it, but shaping it, refining my feelings so that my instincts begin to fall in line with God's designs. And that made me think of the title of this post. Good servants really do often control the household, but they do so in a fashion that leaves the masters with the impression they are in charge.
Perhaps we are not in the business of suppressing emotion, but of guiding it.
I think that puts Christian counseling on a very different course than secular counseling. What do you think?
Christ feelings thoughts
